


Geocentricity

by syllogismos



Series: On the Sizes and Distances (of the Sun and Moon) [1]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Brain Damage, During Canon, Established Relationship, M/M, Memories, Oral Sex, Under-Desk Blow Jobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-27 00:53:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5027410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syllogismos/pseuds/syllogismos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In short: this is one of the moments you might pick, if you had to pick just one and live in it forever.</p>
<p>Merlin traces a path from Harry’s forehead to back, <em>there</em>, behind his ear, putting away a stray lock of hair. He angles his head to the side so that he can look down at the man who’s just, <em>Jesus</em>, blown him under his desk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Geocentricity

Merlin keeps an index. It’s organised by subject—meticulously so—but there’s no reference to chronology. Chronology became meaningless after a single blow to the head in 1999.

When Merlin woke up in the next millennium, it had no meaning. Harry was there when he woke, though, and _that_ meant something. It still does. And the fact that Harry’s gone now—a bullet to the brain, indexed under both _Hart, Harry (Galahad)_ and _Valentine, Richmond_ (“batshit crazy—BEWARE” scribbled in the margin and underlined twice)—should carry more weight, but Merlin hardly lives along time’s arrow, and so it doesn’t. Much.

Instead of living along time’s arrow, as everyone else does, Merlin lives in his index, a collection of files and notebooks. Images, scribblings, videos, annotations, sketches, exclamations, tables of figures, and megabytes upon megabytes, pages upon pages of notes.

He has notes on all of the Kingsman, present and past; notes on all the Kingsman recruits he’s put through their paces, both failed and succeeded; notes on missions, naturally; copious notes on the tech he’s improved or flat out invented over the years.

The number of notes on the subject of one Harry Hart outnumber the rest put together. It’s as unbalanced as the Ptolemaic view of the Universe, but it doesn’t suffer from the same inaccuracy. Merlin orbits Harry; that’s just a truth. Once— _before_ —he might have had enough mass to maintain his own gravitational field, to lead, instead of following, but then there was a mission and a bus, and everything went arse-over-tit, and now Merlin rolls in Harry’s gravitational well, and he’s content. It could have been worse.

* * *

This isn’t exactly Merlin’s favourite exam to administer. It’s just this side of cruel, and there’s always the risk that one day, one day just like any other, it will go badly wrong. One day he’ll actually be removing the corpse of a dead recruit from inside the target, and it won’t be how he claims. He won’t be impressed. He’ll have to live with it forever, if it ever happens, because that’s how he lives. Everything is only once, but everything is forever, at least once it’s been indexed.

Merlin steps forward and inserts the key into the lock on his office door. He likes feeling the tumblers slide into place as he turns the key. The sense of internal movement, the smooth slide and final _click_ , all are far more satisfying than an electronic _beep_ of acceptance.

As he enters, Merlin scans out of habit. Nothing is out of place. The air is quiet and still. Cool due to the depth below ground and lack of windows. It feels timeless too, for the same reasons. There is a faint hum: the local servers, a master and two slaves as back-up, humming to themselves and blinking _green–blue–blue–green–blue_ in the corner.

Merlin sits down at his desk and pulls his keyboard from the drawer, poking at a random key to wake the terminals up. (It’s not a random key. He always pokes the ‘M.’ M for Merlin. M to remind himself who he is. A trick they taught him in hospital. He sneered, but they’re the ones laughing to the bank now, aren’t they? It’s habit, and it works.)

* * *

_This can’t be happening_ , Merlin thinks to himself.

Nevertheless: he comes, shuddering, down Harry’s throat. Harry’s hair is slightly tacky under his fingertips, and the aftershocks—the aftershocks of Harry’s _bloody_ surprise!-waiting-for-you-blow-job-under-the-desk and its concluding orgasm—are still radiating out through his body, all the way to his toes.

Merlin wiggles them. (His toes, _Christ_ , they’re actually tingling. Worth a note, for certain.)

Merlin registers the pulsing of Harry’s throat as he swallows a final time. Harry’s mouth is warm and wet and just on this side of gentle enough to keep Merlin from the discomfort of overstimulation.

In short: this is one of the moments you might pick, if you had to pick just one and live in it forever.

Merlin traces a path from Harry’s forehead to back, _there_ , behind his ear, putting away a stray lock of hair. He angles his head to the side so that he can look down at the man who’s just, _Jesus_ , blown him under his desk. _How did he even–?_

The memory is out of reach. Merlin has no choice but to retrace his steps.

That’s what he calls it, in his own head— _retracing his steps_ —but it’s a total misnomer because the steps are unrecoverable on their own. He’s not going back through events, picking his way backward in time. He doesn’t have events, and he doesn’t have time, at least not in the same way other people do, laid out like a cobblestone road, one stone after another, the edges touching or at least near to one another, ensuring connection. Rather, when it works, this thing he calls “retracing his steps,” it’s because he found the central theme, and if he focuses on that—“fellatio administered by Harry Hart, on his knees between Merlin’s legs,” in this example—he might be able to find the thread of this particular instance among the collection of similar items. Then he can pull on that single, gossamer-fine thread—delicately, oh-so-carefully—and on a good day he’ll get back to the beginning. It’s not quite like recalling a memory, but it’s the closest thing Merlin has.

* * *

_Harry’s hair is incredibly soft when there’s no product in it. The feel of it, slipping through Merlin’s fingers, is just another sensation to focus on, along with the bite of the wire shelving against his shoulders and lower back and the faint scent of ammonia. A cleaning-closet blow job, what a cliché._

_Harry takes Merlin in deep, twisting his hand around the base of Merlin’s cock as he swallows around the head. He pulls back and repeats the procedure, and Merlin turns his head to the side, watching the breaks in the light under the door as people—doctors, nurses—pass in the corridor outside. His orgasm is threatening already, helped along by his adrenaline-soaked nervous system, post-mission. Well, post-_ Harry’s _mission, but there’s just as much adrenaline on the handler’s side when the agent is Harry_ bloody _Hart. At least Harry compensates for the_ years _he’s taking off Merlin’s life with excellent and frequent oral sex._

* * *

Harry speeds up his rhythm. His head must be bobbing vigorously beneath the desk; it’s a shame not to be able to watch, but then, watching would likely foreshorten this encounter because the sight of Harry on his knees, pumping Merlin with his mouth…

Even the _sound_ is pushing Merlin closer and closer to the edge. Wet and sloppy, punctuated by an occasional muted grunt. The _pop_ is rather loud when Harry pulls off suddenly, and Merlin reminds himself that he’s designed the glasses to optimise for recording only at certain angles and frequencies—the wearer’s voice and human speech in general the primary targets for preservation. (He didn’t used to wear the glasses himself, except when he was in the field. Now he’s rarely in the field, but he wears the glasses _always_. Honestly, they’re dead useful as an external memory and reference.)

Harry resumes as suddenly as he’d stopped, but more slowly, taking in Merlin’s dick centimetre by centimetre, panting heavily through his nose as the tip of Merlin’s cock passes his gag reflex and kisses the back of his throat.

The screens in front of him are the only recourse Merlin has to avoid coming on the spot. The screens showing… What is it that he’s supposed to be seeing? The recruits. The recruits still in the air. (Harry’s pulled back slightly, but he’s rubbing the flat of his tongue underneath the head of Merlin’s prick, and _that_ —Merlin’s prick—is throbbing almost painfully.) The recruits are still in the air. Their altitude is dropping. Merlin is watching, he has to be, because God knows what mischief they might–

Harry takes him in deep again, back into his throat, and then he fucking _swallows_. Muscles outside of Merlin’s conscious control clench in his abdomen, and sweat blooms under his arms and at the back of his neck. Harry backs off and presses in again and again in a restrained staccato, the tip of Merlin’s dick just barely bumping the back of Harry’s throat at the end of each short movement, which is, _Christ_ , fucking _amazing_.

_Close–_

Merlin reaches down for Harry’s head, as a courtesy. He fits his thumbs just in front of Harry’s ears and wraps his fingers around the back of Harry’s neck, holding on and bracing for the finish.

* * *

_Merlin is getting sucked off, expertly so, with the picture in front of him a mug of tea, now growing cold, and a plate of Marmite on toast and scrambled eggs. The tea steams lazily, and Harry licks a stripe from the base of Merlin’s cock to the tip. He wraps his mouth around the head and suckles gently, then shocks with a bump of his bottom teeth against the sensitive frenulum. Merlin bangs one knee against the underside of the kitchen table; his eyes water, either with the throbbing of his kneecap or the pleasure of Harry, now pulled off and blowing gently on the wet head of his prick—it’s impossible to say._

* * *

_Another breakfast table: a half-eaten full English at Merlin’s elbow, tea mug all but empty. Harry only has to slide out of his chair to his knees, and Merlin turns his to the side and tugs open the tie of his dressing gown. “Hungry for something else, Harry?” he smirks._

_Harry’s hands push his knees apart, and Harry studies Merlin’s soft prick, resting in a nest of dark hair. It’s flushing already, in tandem with the heat building in Merlin’s cheeks and under his arms. “I’m always hungry for you,” Harry answers, and he swallows the entirety of Merlin’s flaccid cock, closing his eyes as soon as he has the whole thing in his mouth, savouring._

* * *

Merlin recognises the intervals when a request for coffee does _not_ garner him odd looks as _mornings_ and _tea_ is the interval signalled by the delivery of sandwiches. On a good day, he has a through line from the first to the second. On a great day, he travels home without once having to backtrack, and rarely—but all the sweeter for it being so—he lives past the sun’s sleep and into his own. If Harry’s not on a mission, they’ll go to bed together.

Harry always knows when it’s been a Whole Day. He pulls Merlin close to him, an arm behind his shoulder blades, and asks, “How was your day?”

“Long,” Merlin answers.

* * *

Harry knows exactly what Merlin likes. Tight suction around the head but looser when he goes deeper. A graze of teeth every dozen pulls or so, a graze that tests the limit of Merlin’s control. He tenses his thighs against the urge to buck his hips into Harry’s face; his knuckles go white, and his lips are pressed into a needle-thin line. It must look like tense concern, and it is—Merlin is still watching as the recruits fall. They are still flipping and frolicking. It’s so hard not to equate them with their pups sometimes. So young, so carefree. Everything is new and fun, even jumping from a plane. It’s almost sad to spoil it. Merlin checks the monitor for their altitude. They’re OK yet; there’s still time for playing, time before–

_Jesus, fuck._ A hard suck and a wicked tongue, and the numbers on the terminal don’t mean much anymore. Nothing means much anymore, except– Except that _tongue_ , bloody hell, circling around the head, playing and pressing underneath, and Merlin has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from moaning: this flight exercise is being recorded for posterity, of course. If he’s very, very lucky, the forceful exhale that he restrains himself to will seem an expression of disapproval, the disapproval of the schoolmaster watching his students faffing about when they should be completing the task at hand.

The task at hand. What is it again?

The task at hand: Merlin reaches for the microphone, but doesn’t yet punch the button that will allow him to communicate with the recruits. Harry, bless him and his excellent intuition: he pulls back on Merlin’s prick, stopping for a moment to suckle at the head before releasing it into the cool air. Merlin shivers and gathers up his wits, bundling Harry’s panting breath, warm and wet, on the skin of his inner thigh away into a far corner of his mind while he explains to the recruits about the missing parachute, and, for good measure, takes a couple sips from the mug of tea at his elbow. His mouth had been getting rather dry. No sooner has he put down the mug than he feels Harry’s hand angling his prick up and Harry’s nose pressing at the base of his cock. Harry licks a stripe along the seam of his balls, and Merlin can’t help but curl his toes and strain his legs against his trousers, down around his calves and preventing him from spreading his legs any wider, which is tragic because there are so many more places Harry’s tongue belongs.

* * *

_Harry began behind his chair, massaging the back of Merlin’s neck and his shoulders through jumper and shirt. Quite how he ended up under the desk, between Merlin’s knees…Merlin can’t remember. But he’s there now, his hand rubbing Merlin’s half-mast prick through his trousers. The rhythm and pressure are gentle, as if Harry has all the time in the world to do this. But then, Harry’s a practical man, well-aware of his limits and confident in his ability to work within them._

_When he’s decided Merlin is ready, he opens Merlin’s trousers and pulls his prick out through the slit in his shorts. He won’t be able to go as deep without getting Merlin more out of his clothes, but Arthur’s called a meeting due to start in…seventeen minutes._

* * *

The fingers around his ankle are Harry’s, Merlin’s sure of that. The steady grip, the thumb stretching _up_ , under his cuff and above his sock line to touch bare skin: recognisably Harry, all of it. Merlin doesn’t question how Harry got there, under the desk. The normal assumption—Merlin has merely forgotten Harry’s entrance—will reign until evidence strikes it out.

Harry pushes his thumb up, not a smooth motion, but rough and catching on the course hair of Merlin’s bare leg. The trouser leg rides up a little; Merlin can feel the cooler air on his skin, and his entire lower body tenses in anticipation.

Harry’s hand travels up his calf, then back down. He pushes, slightly, until Merlin gets the idea and spreads his legs wider. Harry’s hands on his knees then, warm even through his trousers. One finger taps idly at his right kneecap, and when Merlin moves his hands to his flies, it stills. Merlin unbuttons. He lifts his hips and slides trousers and pants out from under his arse, out from between his legs and the chair. As soon as he’s let them go, Harry pulls them down to Merlin’s calves. His hands return to Merlin’s knees—skin to skin, now, and more gentle pushing, until Merlin has to lean forward with his elbows on the desk to find the position Harry wants him in: arse at the edge of the seat, knees splayed as wide as his trouser legs will allow.

The first puff of moist breath heralds the first touch of hot tongue. The first touch of hot tongue slides up and up then back down and down and morphs into the second touch, which is more of sucking, really, the tip of Merlin’s cock finding a home in Harry’s mouth. To prepare for the third, Merlin tucks in his lower abs, inhales deeply, and starts counting backwards from ten.

* * *

Harry is waiting for him in his office.

“That was quite sexy,” he opens, in the tone of a simple observation.

“What?”

“‘You come here and you whisper it in my ear’,” Harry quotes. “Still a bit hot and bothered, were you?”

Merlin crosses his arms over his chest. He frowns. This is why he wears the glasses now, for when Harry doesn’t make sense. For filling in the blanks.

Harry reels him in, cupping his chin and kissing him, closed mouth and chaste, at first, humming contentedly. Merlin drops his arms and grips Harry’s hips, pressing close and surprised to feel Harry more than half-hard through his trousers. _What’s that for, then?_ Harry presses closer and teases Merlin’s mouth open, his tongue invading, sweeping an inventory, but it’s Merlin who _tastes_. Tastes _semen_ and pushes Harry back.

“That’s _you_ ,” Harry smirks, not unkindly. “I’m surprised you’ve forgotten already.”

“You’re not surprised at all, you rotten liar.” Merlin bites Harry’s bottom lip to underline the point, but he might be ruining it by smiling at the same time.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the result of me running (probably too far) with a few different ideas at once. I might be sorry?
> 
> To wit:
> 
>   1. Merlin was distracted during the parachute test because Harry was giving him a BJ under the desk. (I mean, uh, _obviously_.)
>   2. Merlin's capable in the field (as we see at the end), and used to work in the field (with Harry and Lee Unwin and he-who-becomes-Lancelot, as we see at the beginning), but he doesn't usually do fieldwork anymore. Why? Answer here: a brain injury on a mission that left him with no [episodic memory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episodic_memory). (Traumatic brain injury is not listed as a possible etiology in the wiki, but it is.)
>   3. I wanted to try to write a bit of porn, _backwards_. I have weird goals, I'm aware. ;)
> 

> 
> Also, there's another part coming, very different in many ways (including being completely lacking in porn). But that's what series are for, amirite? Collections of connected things that aren't quite connected enough to be _chapters_. Or at least that's what I think they're for!


End file.
